Black Box

Few Israeli novelists have succeeded as well as Oz in portraying Israel's intensely felt political and religious strife. Black Box , his most experimental work to date, is told in letters: Ilana, "a born harlot," contacts her ex-husband for the first time in seven years to seek help for their desperately disturbed son, whose parentage was questioned in court. As well-meaning lawyers and relatives join in, what at first seems one woman's madness finally serves to illuminate all society. The ambiguities of the Israeli psyche are depicted by Ilana's second husband, who resorts to blackmail in soliciting funds for highly suspicious Zionist causes. Absolutely nothing here is trivialized or cliched, no easy feat considering Oz's themes.